Balance
by Jaslazul
Summary: After the Aparoid invasion, an invisible fox must learn to cope with being nothing but a name. Fox and Wolf friendship.


Fox tapped his foot, already tired of holding the basket.

Why did people have to be so slow?

Cocking his head, he could see the person holding up the line—an elderly squirrel, digging in her purse for something. Of course, whenever he was in a hurry, everyone else took their sweet time.

The supermarket was the same as it had always been—shelves lined with preservative-waxed produce, overpriced processed goods, and antibiotic and steroid-laced meats. At least it wasn't too crowded. Then again, that was kind of the point of him coming this late.

In his eye-wandering, the magazine rack next to him had caught his eye. He didn't even have to read the headlines to know what half of them would be about.

"Trash."

He hadn't meant to say it out loud. The young raccoon in front of him turned around at the sound of his voice, gasping and staring for a few moments.

"Fox McCloud!"

Mortal ears should have a limit on the number of times they could suffer to hear that name. Fox gave the same practiced smile he always did, resisting the urge to drop the basket and get out of there. "Yeah. Shh, quiet down."

She smiled and stuck her chin out, as if she was proud of herself for noticing. "You know, I'm going to raise my son to be just like you."

"Cool." He had to restrain himself from lashing out at her. She didn't know a thing about him. He could be a stupid, homeless drug addict for all she knew.

But it wouldn't matter. Because he was Fox McCloud.

"Are you going to go?" He gestured behind her, trying to point out that the squirrel in front of her had left.

"But—"

"If you're just gonna stand there, I'm getting in front of you."

"Oh! Please, go ahead." She gestured ahead of herself with her arms.

Frowning, he leapt in front of her and began scanning his items. When he finished, he paid without looking at the price, grabbed his bags, and hurried out into the twilight. He walked towards his apartment, which was a few blocks away, keeping his eyes low, trying to look inconspicuous.

A whooping noise from across the street gave him the impression that he'd failed. He looked up and let out a groan. A group of teenagers was running across the street towards him.

"Mr. McCloud!"

"Holy crud! The guys at the Academy won't believe this!"

"Can I get your autograph?" The speaker was waving around a leather jacket, emblazoned with a Fox McCloud emblem that Fox could've sworn he hadn't authorized.

He broke into a sprint, cursing himself for walking, and even more for not just getting the stuff delivered. He turned a street corner, then ducked into the first alley he came across, the bag of groceries flailing with his motion.

Then, more than ever, he wished that they and all others like them would just go away. None of them knew him, none of them cared about him. They worshiped a name. Sometimes, Fox wondered why he even bothered living anymore.

He cocked his ears, hearing footsteps passing by.

"He went this way! Come on!"

He listened until the noise faded into the distance, then poked his head out of the alley, glancing both ways. Satisfied, he shoved his hands in his pockets and started on his route once more, staring at the concrete beneath his feet.

It was beginning to get dark.

A few blocks later, he pulled his right hand out of his pocket and unhooked the bag from around it. He took the bag in his other hand and brought his right one to eye level, flexing it, trying to restore the circulation. In the process, his eyes had wandered. He recognized this street. He tried to keep his gaze low, but, as always, his eyes gravitated upward. Once he got them up there, he could never tear them away.

An enormous, electric billboard dominated his view. On it, there was a picture of Fox McCloud, shirtless, wearing a pair of faded jeans—he couldn't help but wonder how they had made the picture. In gold-trimmed, black letters, it read:

_"Be like McCloud—wear Strouds!"_

He'd seen them put it up. He remembered thinking about how much of an icon of poor quality the thing would be for whatever it had on it, because any respectable company with a decent product would've gotten a hologram.

Kind of ironic, now that he thought about it.

For this abomination, men had worked their asses off—oh yes, he'd seen them out there, sometimes drenched in rain, sometimes sweating like sumo wrestlers. They had created a monster. An icon, a constant reminder of him to the people, destroying his chance of escaping and splaying his fabricated image about for all to see, crafted with the sweat of overworked, under-appreciated workers.

All for the purpose of selling jeans. To make the public believe—just for the amount time it takes for them to rush to a supermarket—that wearing a pair of unfashionable slacks would somehow make them more like Fox McCloud.

He'd had never worn a pair of Strouds—in fact, he'd never heard of them until that abomination showed up. Since then, they'd become the latest fashion. Jeans, for crying out loud! What century were they in?

He'd seen them all: imitation Star Fox flight suits, model Arwings, "Arwing-quality" fighter planes... they pretty much marked the extent of what he had done since the invasion: he'd made people rich.

He was nothing but a marketing ploy.

He switched hands with the bag again, then stopped, noticing that he'd almost missed the park. It was normally a beautiful place, but the dim street lights cast an eerie glow on it, making it seem ethereal. The few trees that had survived stood tall and proud, but the place was dominated by saplings. From what he could see, it was deserted.

He turned and walked in. It was his kind of place: secluded and ghostly and lifeless. He sighed and kept walking.

What had he become?

"Hey."

It was so faint that Fox thought it had to be his imagination.

"Hey!"

A bit startled, he turned towards the direction of the voice. There was a figure sitting in one of the nearby benches. His first instinct was to get as far away as possible, but something held him back.

"What do you want?"

The figure shifted. "Fox McCloud... hah, what a coincidence."

The way the guy said his name... there was no reverence, no spite—just plain words. Fox hadn't heard that from anyone other then Falco in a long time—he kind of liked it.

"Well? You gonna say something?"

Fox shook his head and squinted in the light. "Who are you?"

"You mean you don't remember?" The figure stood and walked into the light of one of the nearby lamps. For a few seconds, Fox couldn't move. He tensed, baring his teeth.

Wolf O'Donnell.

The lupine made a small waving motion with his hand. "Calm down. I dunno about you, but I didn't come here expecting a fight. And I'd much rather shoot you down in the air, anyway."

"Gee, that's a relief."

Fox braced himself for some kind of rebuttal, but Wolf said nothing, staring off into the distance. The dim light reflecting off his fur made him appear ghostly, feral. Every few seconds, Fox would see a suspicious twitch, like he was reaching for a weapon or signaling to someone, but the motions all proved to be harmless. After about a minute of that, Fox tore his gaze away, realizing that he didn't really care.

"So, what brings you here?"

It took Fox a while to register that Wolf had been speaking to him. He sat the bag down at his side and crossed his arms. "Going home. How about you? Do you always come here alone and hide in the shadows?"

No response.

"Were you waiting for someone? Someone easy?"

"Hey, cut the crap. I just..." Wolf huffed, bringing up a hand to adjust his eyepiece. "I needed some time to myself is all."

_Cut the crap_. The words stung, echoing in Fox's mind. Moments earlier, they had been a flawless description of what he wished to tell the entire population of Corneria; now, they were being used against him. "Is something wrong?" The words came out before he had a chance stop them.

"It's none of your business."

Fox caught the implied "yes," but couldn't bring himself to act on it. Most of the time, his words were met with either mindless indulgence or personal attacks. Here, he actually had a chance to screw things up.

Wolf's voice snapped him out of his reverie. "What's it like?"

"Huh?"

"You know." Wolf didn't look at him. "Being the big hero."

Fox almost spat. "Don't get me started."

"Ya know they're building a statue of you here, right?"

"No." He wasn't surprised. "They don't tell me anything. I'm not important. Fox McCloud is."

"What?"

"...nothing." Fox shifted the weight between his feet a few times, stealing a glance over at Wolf every once in a while. He felt that he was obligated to continue the conversation, though getting the words out took a bit of effort. "How's it been for you?"

Wolf looked away, hints of a snarl forming on his muzzle. "Oh, it's _fine_."

Fox looked at Wolf again, who flinched at the contact. The lupine's hands were in his pockets, and he looked like he was making a constant effort to make himself be still.

The sense of obligation returned. "Do you wanna talk about it?" Fox's voice came out weak and low-pitched.

Wolf lifted his head and made eye contact. "I don't need your help, pup."

Struggling to match Wolf's gaze, Fox said, "Who else is gonna help you? Leon?"

"Don't talk about my teammates like that."

Fox looked away, staring into the shadows of the park. "It always helps to talk. Why don't you just tell me what's wrong? I promise not to laugh." He didn't know where the words were coming from.

Wolf sighed. "Fine. If it'll make you stop asking." He walked back towards the bench, fading into the shadows.

Fox couldn't see anything, so, against his better judgment, he followed and found the cold, wooden bench by touch. When he sat down, there were a few minutes in which he could only hear the hum of the far-off lights and the hiss of insects.

Wolf drew in a breath. "If you tell anyone a word of what I'm about to say, I swear I'll rip your intestines out and sell them to Pigma. Got it?"

Fox nodded, then realized that Wolf couldn't see him. "Yeah, yeah, I got it."

"Good."

Fox heard sounds of movement from across the bench and felt the weight shift. He could've sworn he heard Wolf's mouth open and close a few times, as if he was having trouble forming words.

"Why do you always get all the credit?"

"I dunno." Fox had been wondering that for a while.

"Do you know what it's like?"

Fox waited, assuming it was a rhetorical question.

It all came out in a rush. "Everyone looks at me like they're afraid I'm gonna mug them or somethin. They turn the other way when I walk down the street. They would all be _dead_ if not for me, and that's the thanks I get?"

Shaking his head, Fox had to wonder how long Wolf had kept everything inside. "Wolf..."

"We barely even got paid. Now look at us, breaking our necks for this place, and everyone still thinks we're trying to blow them up. It's like they don't even know that I—"

"Calm down!" Fox reached a hand over until it contacted something. He left it there for a while before withdrawing it.

"I'm the same way."

Fox could hear the sound of Wolf's breathing. "How could you? Everyone _loves_ you. Do you know how many women would divorce their husbands for one night with you?"

"Ugh." Fox moaned. "How about let's not go there."

Fox could detect the heat of Wolf's scowl even though he couldn't see it. "How can life really be that bad for the biggest hero in the System?"

"It's..." He shifted his weight, eliciting a creak from the bench. "It's not as great as you'd think it is."

"Why?"

"It's like..." He paused, drinking in the futility of trying to explain it. It was like trying to describe purple to a colorblind person. And, as soon as he thought that, it came to him.

"It's like I'm invisible."

"Uhh... you're on the news at least once a week. There's a giant billboard of you half-naked just down the street. _They're building a freakin statue_—you call that _invisible_?"

Fox shook his head. "No, no, no, not like that. Everyone knows who I am, but most of them don't know me. There's this huge wall of hero in front of me, and that's all anyone can see. The real me's invisible."

"And then," he said, digging up tiny holes with his feet, "then I feel kind of useless. It's like I'm alive just so I can be a household name. Life's been too... too simple, too mundane, too..."

"...normal." They both said it at the same time.

He heard a "hrmph" from Wolf's direction.

"My life's worse."

"Nah, mine's definitely worse."

"Think whatever you want, but mine's still worse."

Fox looked over in Wolf's direction, seeing nothing but black. "Okay, fine, both our lives suck. Happy now?"

"Whatever. But you started it."

Fox brought his hand to his muzzle, trying to keep in the laughter.

"What?" Fox could imagine him trying to hide an innocent-looking smile.

"Nothing. It's just... you're such a little kid."

"Oh yeah? Well, you're such a _girl_."

Fox brought up a hand to scratch at one of his ears. "So, you're saying you got beaten by a girl?"

"Hey, that was a long time ago."

Fox strained so hard to calm himself that his chest hurt and a few tears came to his eyes. He wiped them away, glad that Wolf couldn't see him.

"What's the story behind that billboard, anyway?" the lupine asked.

"Trying to change the subject? Don't want to admit defeat?"

Stutters came from Wolf's direction. Fox would've killed to be able to see his face—this was the most fun he'd had since the invasion, as morbid as that sounded.

Trying to calm himself, he let his eyes drift around the park again. Now that he thought about it, being here with Wolf wasn't all that bad. The park wasn't a bad place, either. If there was going to be a statue of him, this was where he'd want it.

Somehow, his thoughts turned to the rest of the Star Wolf team. "How's the team been?" To his surprise, it came out automatically.

"They're alright. Leon still creeps everyone out from time to time, and Panther's still stalking your girlfriend."

Fox peered into the darkness. "Hey, she's not my girlfriend."

There was movement from Wolf's end of the bench. "Yeah, yeah, deny it all you want. You two are gonna get married one day."

Fox lacked the will to argue. Sighing, he once again peered off into the darkness. He hadn't noticed until then how dark it actually was. He pulled out his communicator and took a fleeting glance at it before shoving back in his pocket. He needed to get home.

Fox stood and walked into the light of one of the nearby lamps. Wolf wasn't far behind him, and when the lupine entered into the light, he didn't look as feral as before.

"I've gotta go," Fox said. "It's pretty late."

"Yeah, I should probably get going too..."

The awkwardness from earlier returned. Fox cleared his throat. "Well... We'll have to talk again sometime. Thanks."

Wolf raised an eyebrow. "For?"

"For treating me like a person."

Wolf's eye drooped. "Oh." He looked like he was having difficulty pronouncing the next word. _"...thanks_. I guess talking did help."

Fox looked down at the ground. "I'll see you later then, I guess?"

There was a pause. "Yeah... I guess so."

With a final wave, Fox picked up his bag and set on his way home for the third time that night. After about a block of walking, he heard a voice.

"Mommie, it's Fox McCloud!"

He turned at the speaker and could barely make out a young mouse in the darkness, tugging on the hand of his mother, pointing at Fox. The older woman beside him stopped and stared at the boy. "Leave the poor guy alone, Danny." She gave Fox an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, sir."

Fox closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His thoughts turned back to Wolf, and how differently the boy would react if he had seen the lupine instead. With that in mind, he smiled.

He looked back at the woman and said, "It's no problem, miss."

* * *


End file.
